Different tools are presently being used to automatically test graphical user interfaces (UIs). Examples of these tools include WinRunner and TestPartner. These tools provide functionality to record selected user actions within a UI as a script, modify the recorded scripts if necessary, and then automatically replay the user actions according to the scripts. The recorded scripts can only be run separately and they cannot be combined to langer sequences. In order to combine scripts into larger and larger sequences, the scripts have to be divided into smaller scripts only representing the logic of one single action. This is done by developing such scripts using the programming language provided by the test tool.
For dynamic applications, such as SAP's Netweaver suite of applications in which a UI's appearance is dynamically created depending on the user activity (or activity of other users) and where the properties of control elements change frequently, a dynamic adaptation of the recorded scripts is required. For extensive scripts, a large amount of high quality human resources, mostly requiring special programming knowledge, is usually needed to maintain recorded scripts or to re-record certain scripts. Thus, automatic testing of dynamic applications is very resource intense and time consuming.